


chapter 1

by wolfperson15



Series: The last of us pt.2 [1]
Category: The Last of Us
Genre: F/M, Zombie Apocalypse
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-11-09
Updated: 2018-11-09
Packaged: 2019-08-21 02:40:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,948
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16568057
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wolfperson15/pseuds/wolfperson15
Summary: After the hospital, Joel and Ellie return to Maria's community. There they come across problems, small and big. everything from arguments to raids to kidnapping. Ellie needs to stay calm through all this and deal with it all with Joel at her side. This is written from Ellie's P.O.V, there will be some new characters and some new relationships.





	chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> hey, this is my first piece of work ever so please give some feedback, I'd really appreciate it. Anyway, this story starts on Ellie's 15th birthday, at the hospital. This is kind of a background to the story so nothing exciting happens. I changed some of the dialogue that Ellie and Joel have for the sake of this story. I'll probably add a new chapter every Friday. I don't know how long this is going to be; I've planned it out and I'm guessing around 20-30 chapters. Please add any suggestions to the comments. Ok here's the story, enjoy :)

It’s my birthday today. Joel doesn’t know. No one knows. And I’m wondering if anyone will ever know. Because here I am, in a papery dull yellow gown sitting on an old bench in a hallway all alone, hoping the doctors don’t fuck up later doing whatever it is they’re going to do. All they said was something about surgery. I wasn’t listening though. Some of them came out of the room looking at me with nothing but pity. I felt like I was going to die. Not at the hands of a group of survivors, or wild animals, or one of the hundreds of infected I’ve encountered and not even from one of the many bloaters I just had to kill. But at the hands of some doctors that do who knows what to my body. Just like I always thought it would happen. I woke up on this bench, in these clothes, and then was told to sit still by a doctor who was rushing through the halls. Now, almost an hour later, that same doctor is walking briskly towards me with a needle in his hand. I want to sink into the wall. I want to disappear. Especially when two guards come up and hold me still while the doctor plunges the needle into the side of my neck. “I’m sorry,” he whispered right before I collapsed and everything went black.

\---

I wake up on an uncomfortable leather seat in the back of the car. I look to the driver’s seat; Joel is there. “What happened?” I ask feeling as high as a fucking kite. I don’t remember anything except drowning in that flooded parking lot. He looks at my reflection in the mirror and starts to explain. He tells me about the operation, what they were going to do. He tells me that there are dozens of more people like me. And he tells me that they’ve stopped looking for a cure. That’s all. He doesn’t say why. He doesn’t answer the billion questions that I’m unable to answer. I feel enraged. I feel like this is my fault. No, his fault. Am I the reason they stopped looking for a cure? Was it because they knew it would be difficult to find someone like me and bring them in? I don’t know. But what I do know is that maybe, just maybe, I could’ve been the cure. One life for all of humanity. But I also feel relieved. I would’ve died. And I know I would’ve been a hero or whatever but it’s scarier than it sounds. It’s terrifying. I turn around so I’m facing the back of the leather seat and tuck my hands behind my head. “I’m sorry” Joel whispers, so quiet I wouldn’t have been able to hear him if that wasn’t the only sound in what seems like a never-ending road. I spend the next three hours like that, thinking about what could’ve been.

\---

The car ride was long. About five hours or so. We made a stop at an old abandoned gas station for supplies and so I could change. Two hours later, the car just stopped in the middle of Jackson County. Joel got out of the car to look at the engine a soon as it happened. I got up and sat in the drivers so my legs were dangling above the dirt path that Joel was on. He spent about 15 minutes looking at the engine while I spent 15 minutes looking at the bite on my forearm. I still couldn’t understand why I, of all people, am immune. Why me? “Well, looks like we’re walking,” Joel’s voice brings me back into reality. He gives me about 0.25 seconds before he starts walking forward. Great. I get up and walk after him. We walk for half an hour. We made a few comments on the view, crawled through a fence. He told me his daughter, Sarah, used to hike with him; he told me we would’ve been good friends. It was when we reached a waterfall that we could see most of Tommy's community. And it also was when I realized I really wanted to make sure that Joel didn’t lie to me. Once we climb a little ledge I finally muster up the courage to say something. “Hey wait.” Really? That’s all? I sigh in disappoint at my self while Joel turns to look at me. “Back in Boston- Back when I was bitten. I wasn’t alone. My best friend was there. And she got bit too.” I knew what I was going to say. The problem is, the point that I was trying to make was scary. Even to me. Even in a world where people get sick and tear each other to shreds. “So… she says ‘let’s just wait it out. Y’know we could be all poetic and just lose our minds together’. I’m still waiting for my turn.” I can see the disappoint in Joel’s face when he huffs out my name. But I stop before he says something else. “Her name was Riley and she was the first to die.” My eyes water at the memories of her as they come flooding back. “And then it was Tess. And then Sam.” It was a short list. The list of people that died because of me. But it would keep growing. I was sure.

\---

The next minutes were a blur of Joel reassuring me and telling me that I had to find something to live for. The moment that I felt that the whole world was holding their breaths, was when I asked what I had been wanting to for hours now. The one question that was eating my brain. The one question that was devouring me. The one, simple, question that could change everything. “Swear to me that everything, every little thing, that you said about the Fireflies is true,” I say in barely a whisper before I hold my breath. He pauses and sighs. “I swear”. As soon as the words leave his mouth I feel my eyes start to water. Marlene, the woman that looked after me when my parents died. The woman who claimed she loved me more than anything, wanted to kill me for an experiment she could’ve done on dozens of other people.

\---

We don’t take very long to reach the power plant. Once we arrive at the gates open to welcome us to our new home. “Hey! You came back,” despite the intentions of his warm greeting, Tommy sounds more concerned and worried for anything. “Yeah… there were a few…. Complications. We have nowhere to go, nothing to do. Figured we might try coming back here.” Joel says, switching his gaze between me and Tommy. “Well, you two are welcome anytime!” Maria comes in sensing the tension and discomfort. She hops off a horse and comes to wrap an arm across my shoulders. “We’ve been expanding so we have a few jobs offers up and there are still some unoccupied homes. For now, though, I think it’ll be best if you two sleep somewhere else so we could pick the best house for you and help you settle.” She says, Stepping back next to Tommy and smiling at me and Joel; admiring us with a smile from afar like we ’re a piece of art. “I think that’s a great idea,” Tommy says with a little less enthusiasm than Maria would like.

\---

Before I know it, we’re in a big room with a bunk bed and a table in the middle. “Alright, you two get settled, unpack, relax, get cleaned up. I’ll be back to call you two for dinner soon ok?” Maria calls out from the door. Joel replies with a polite yet bored thank you. The room looks huge for just the two of us. There’s a wooden table in the middle with our weapons and huge boxes of ammo shoved underneath. The bunk bed looks like it came out of a prison. I’m not going to complain though. I’ve only had the luxury of sleeping on an actual bed a handful of times, and I won’t complain since this is only temporary. Off to the side, there’s a small metal door that leads to a small, worn down bathroom. It has a shower, a toilet and a sink with a cabinet underneath it. I’ve never actually taken a shower before so I was excited. I’ve always cleaned up in a tub full of water or a pond or something. In the bathroom, there were hooks on the walls with two towels, which surprisingly, look clean. There was also a bottle labelled shampoo and another labelled body wash sitting on a shelf inside the shower. After 20 minutes of reading my comic on the prison bed, Joel steps out of the bathroom with new clothes and wet hair. He comes up to me and hands me a pair of black jeans and a white shirt. “Found these in the cabinet inside. Go take your first shower. It feels real good.” He says the last part with a grin and I can’t help but laugh and shove him. “Shut up,” I say jokingly as I grab the clothes and head to take my first ever shower. I walk in and place my clothes on the closed toilet seat, probably the cleanest surface in here. I hang my towel on the hook and turn to look at the shower. I undress before I step in and I’m immediately confused; there’s a circle thing with a tube sticking out, a blue dot is on the left side and a red dot is on the other side. I assume that’s temperature. But then bellow it is another thin tube that’s connected to a rectangle. And above all this mess is a circle with holes attached to the wall. After a few minutes of playing around and messing with the shower (I also burned and froze myself nearly to death a few times) I figured out how to work it. Now, I stand here under this warm water so lost. I am so fucking lost. I don’t even know if I should be alive. I was minutes away from death. Or maybe seconds, even. I close my eyes. On three, I will let this all go. 1… the Fireflies were liars. 2… Joel did the right thing. 3. I open my eyes which are more watery than I’d like them to be right now and reach for the bottle labelled shampoo. Joel told me I should massage this into my hair and scalp. I’ve never received or given a massage so I just rubbed it in with one hand. Once my hair was three times as big as it was when I came in the shower, I decided I was done and rinsed it off using the same technique. I took the body wash and put a bit onto a fluffy, netball thing and scrubbed it everywhere. I rinsed off and stepped out. The next few minutes I just put on my clothes and brushed my hair, which becomes very tangled when you’ve only brushed it a handful of times. Once I’m done I look in the mirror. The person inside doesn’t look much like me, but it is. There’s a girl, 15 years old, with brown braided hair. She’s wearing a white t-shirt tucked into a pair of black jeans, and black sneakers. She doesn’t have any blood or dirt or sweat on her; she smells like fresh strawberries, not like clickers or runners. She doesn’t look afraid; she’s safe. She is the new me.

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End file.
